Oregon fishermen may get to catch more chinook salmon in 2010

View full sizeThe Associated Press Ocean salmon fisherman Dan Kleinman unloads a catch back in 2005. More chinook salmon are expected to the return the Sacramento River this year to spawn, a projection that may boost commercial fishing off Oregon and California's coast after two years of closures.
For the first time in two years, Oregon's commercial fishermen will be allowed to catch chinook salmon all along the Oregon coast under three fishing options detailed Thursday by a federal panel.

The fishing from May to September will still be limited because of concerns about poor chinook returns to the Sacramento River in recent years. Sacramento fall chinook provide the bulk of Oregon's ocean catch.

And commercial fishing for coho salmon off central and southern Oregon, which return mainly to Oregon rivers, will not be allowed because of declining numbers.

But the Pacific Fishery Management Council's options are still an up note for a salmon industry that relies on chinook and saw its largest closures ever in 2008 and 2009.

Washington and the coast of Oregon north of Cape Falcon, near Seaside, will likely see strong commercial chinook seasons, largely because of favorable returns to the Columbia River.

Sport anglers will also have open seasons along the coasts of Oregon and Washington, though coho quotas are lower than in 2009.

The council, which regulates West Coast fishing, will set final limits at its meeting in Portland next month.

There remains a chance that California's salmon fishery could be closed altogether when the council issues its final decision during a meeting in Oregon next month. However, Council chairman David Ortmann called that possibility unlikely.

"Compared to the last two years, there's going to be more fishermen back on the water," Ortmann said after the vote.

Congress has allocated $170 million in disaster relief the last two years to help fishing communities in California, Oregon and Washington hurt by the losses.

The prospect for improved salmon seasons comes after federal biologists predicted more fall-run chinook will return to the Sacramento River and its tributaries this year. Estimates indicate 245,000 fall-run chinook could return, many more than the last three years and above federal conservation goals designed to protect the species.

Last year, just 39,500 returned, a record low.

The council, which has been meeting all week in Sacramento, faced criticism by California officials that its salmon predictions for the Sacramento River were too optimistic.

Last year, for example, the council predicted 122,000 chinook would return to the river, when only a third of that number actually did. That was one of the reasons the council agreed to weigh shutting the California season down this year, even though it appears a remote possibility.

"We have concerns about the way in which the projections have been based," said Harry Morse, a spokesman at the California Department of Fish and Game. "There's no historical precedence for a return from 39,000 to 245,000 fish in one year."

Despite the problems in the fishery, members of the 14-member fishery council do not blame the salmon's decline on overfishing, noting the closures of the last two years.

Fishermen and federal wildlife officials point to the massive state and federal pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that send water to Southern California, Bay area communities and Central Valley farms. Others cite changing ocean conditions, perhaps caused by global warming, as another possible factor.